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no object‘he was suffocating, his head jammed up against the back of the sofa’

with object‘you're suffocating me—I can scarcely breathe’

‘the suffocating heat’

‘He held her so close she nearly suffocated on his jacket.’

‘An aching in my chest, so intense, so powerful and paralysing: I was suffocating, couldn't breathe, smoke was filling my mouth.’

‘His legs had become trapped and the equipment was suffocating him.’

‘This remarkable evocation of childhood is set in an Italian hamlet during the hottest summer on record - the suffocating heat a perfect backdrop to the claustrophobic tension of the story.’

‘The air was close and suffocating in the black car, as she drove aimlessly down the interstate, trying to flee from all her memories and the life that was sucking all the wants and needs from her that once made her happy.’

‘The heat had suddenly become unbearable; he thought he might suffocate at any moment.’

‘The simplest is that for resuscitating those who have been temporarily suffocated by choking up the throat.’

‘The muggy, early-September night had descended on the suburban neighborhood, suffocating and heavy.’

‘Exhaust fumes from cars and factories make for a toxic, suffocating smog that hangs over the city.’

‘In the opinion of these writers, sleepers in stuffy rooms were slowly suffocating in a toxic fog of their own breath, sweat, and flatulence.’

‘Have mercy on me for I am suffocated with this heat.’

‘Scheele described the chlorine gas formed as having a greenish yellow color and a suffocating odor ‘most oppressive to the lungs.’’

‘Their stench was suffocating at close range, and the ground trembled beneath each thunderous footstep.’

‘When Logan got off the plane he was completely stifled by the suffocating heat of Michigan.’

‘Sometimes she would wake at night unable to breathe, terrified she was suffocating.’

‘She shuddered remembering the last time she had missed the early bus and how she had had to sit beside some guy wearing so much cologne she thought that she would suffocate from lack of real air.’

‘The climbers reach the peak after much struggle, but as they make their way back down, the weather closes in with suffocating intensity.’

‘To complete the whole, the windows were all closed and the air suffocating.’

‘I couldn't breathe, the fumes were suffocating me.’

‘Caked in cracked dirt and seeping sweat, crawling on all fours, suffocating from the heat, and trying to avoid startled lizards and bats, I cannot help but feel that I am glad they widened the tunnels for us.’

‘Although, the holes in the watery Wicklow defence were initially plugged, the problem of their inability to create scoreable chances was still suffocating their performance.’

‘The agency also places suffocating constrictions on the press vis-à-vis the Imperial Family.’

‘One gets the sense that he finds the Western episteme constraining, if not suffocating, in its insistence upon the ideological hold and closure of meaning.’

‘Each small change is difficult to argue against but the overall effect is suffocating for the people we then expect to provide a decent public service.’

‘Between them, they have so eroded Kate's confidence and self-esteem that she is incapable of taking control of her own life, and she is trapped in an increasingly suffocating existence as she grows to adulthood.’

‘She couldn't find anything out of order, but sometimes she felt oppressed, suffocated.’

‘The loneliness that had been pervading my life and slowly suffocating me was now lifting, and I could breathe freely again.’

‘The film's entertainment value is suffocated and the lack of individual character development means that the viewer's empathy in these heart-rending scenes is nonexistent.’

‘He felt like he was suffocating under his father's oppression.’

‘I felt I was being trapped, suffocated by their delighted chatter and effusion.’

‘Perhaps David and his like will only be happy when they are known as ‘Citizen 326789’ or some similar Orwellian label that suffocates what remains of individual freedom.’

‘Trapped, suffocating, and every other clichéd word one can look up in the thesaurus to describe being stranded in this small terraced island in the Pacific.’

‘Almost everybody used it, in every conceivable situation, and constantly, in such a way as would oppress and suffocate us could we go back in time and live in that environment.’

‘Kids today are rarely allowed to follow their imaginations outdoors without close, almost suffocating, supervision.’

‘This feels like improvisation, so naturally have they found the heart of the scores and the recording is excellent as well, close without suffocating the listener or the music, detail with air around it.’

‘What one generation considers the very definition of success - a steady job and a roof over one's head - the next often finds constricting, if not suffocating.’

‘The courtyard was completely silent, as it had been earlier, but now the silence seemed oppressive, suffocating.’

‘What Maryna is leaving behind is not obscurity but an oppressive, suffocating fame; not poverty but tiresome social privilege.’

Origin

Late 15th century (earlier ( late Middle English) as suffocation): from Latin suffocat- ‘stifled’, from the verb suffocare, from sub- ‘below’ + fauces ‘throat’.